@khazanov.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Russian, Rutgers University. Cultural history; ideologies of the late/post-Soviet Russian middle class. Author of "The Russia That We Have Lost: Pre-Soviet Past as Anti-Soviet Discourse" (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023)
They would have to be holocrons though. It’s illegal to use paper in SW, as I’ve recently learned.
...Because if it weren't unsustainable, then the universe would be teeming with Gray Jedi and Yoda, the supposedly wisest being in the Order and possibly the Galaxy, would also be a Gray Jedi, because it isn't fucking rocket science to believe in its code, if it actually worked. Ok, I'm done! (9/9)
And yes, it generates occasional Sith/rogue/dark fallout, but clearly 10,000+ years is enough to suggest that this fallout is the cost of doing business and that the alternative has to be totally unsustainable... (8/x)
So no, I don't accept this shit. The Jedi are the Jedi because they're the Jedi. They can't marry and have kids because the Force is a really dangerous fucking thing. 7/x
And now we are being told constantly by the handlers of the Force theology, that this one event, which led to a total of 15 yrs of Sith rule (by TWO GUYS who can't even make an apprentice), is enough to upend tens of thousands of generations of lived practice of safely wielding the force?! 6/x
First, Lucas asks us to accept the fundamentally idiotic exigency that the whole thing, which has existed for longer than all of Earth's human culture, has been upended by one Jedi (Anakin) who wanted babies with Natalie Portman (and who can blame him). But that's never occurred previously?! 5/x
But here's the thing– Star Wars is telling us this WHILE ALSO telling us that the Jedi have sustained themselves for 10,000 years? 30,000 years? 4/x
The "right answer" is obvious. We must all be Gray, we must find balance between light and dark, etc. Very quaint and obvious enough in our universe since when? The Greeks? 3/x
For example, there's this graphic, just posted by some bot on my FB: 2/x
Ok, apropos of nothing in my professional life, I'd just like to say that as a partially-unwilling follower of Star Wars lore, which spams my FB constantly, I am annoyed by the banal stupidity of the dominant "post-Jedi" ideology of this franchise. 1/x
Cato has published my comprehensive review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.
Apropos Harvard. Putin's personalist rule is executed by Admin of the Pres., a.k.a. "Apeshechka." Apeshechka's classic move is sending a tax inspector to places Pu & co. dislike. Then a fire inspector to condemn the building (e.g. EUSPb). Or a health insp. to check the gym. This is called "kreativ."
For aficionados, we are now at this point in the constitutional crisis.
Yeah, I realized that after I posted! You have to admit tho!
i rly like that gif, where did you get it.
Cuz it was written by ChatGPT. Classic bullshit, familiar to any teacher right now.
Everyone wants there to be a grand scheme behind all of this but the terrible truth is that extremely stupid people are in charge and they have a fanatical devotion to wrong, childlike concepts of society and economics cooked up by right wing radio hosts in order to sell tainted dietary supplements
Russian liberals like to talk a lot about a proverbial battle between the TV and the fridge, but so far the TV hasn't lost a round. Above all, Putin runs a kleptocracy because rich people like being rich and not asking questions. And btw, they also like the Confederacy, but prob. Nixon over Reagan.
Comrade Stalin, there’s been a big mistake!
Ok, sorry if this is a totally obtuse question, but when it comes to $hitcoin, is there a point where it crashes from near $100K, where it's been hovering for a while now, to the, what was it, $1? where it started? Like, is this a pure ponzi scheme, or is it too big to fail in some sense?
Maybe at the end of such a week, what we all really need is some perestroika-era healing vibes from Allan Chumak. The excerpt here is my personal favorite. postsoviet90s.com/artifacts/ch...
Yeah, kinda like in Russia "liberalism" is a foreign, "Anglo-Saxon" import, meant to steal Russia's juices, while in the US it is the doing of the dastardly "globalist elites," meant to steal American juices by turning "us" into France.
I made a book!
It’s about the wild Russian book industry as the Soviet Union fell; it’s got interviews with authors, publishers, and critics, close readings and bestseller stats—all while showing how capitalism emptied out Russian culture and how it might be coming for us next.
Good to know! We worked hard on it, and Maya Vinokour most of all! Do let us know if and when you run into any kinks, which are surely there, as this is still a very fresh site.
Does everyone know about that time when it was discovered that Lenin was a mushroom? To those who haven't heard, here's a great writeup by Fabrizio Fenghi, along with a brief subtitled clip from Kurekhin's May 1991 TV 'documentary'. Full version is on YouTube. postsoviet90s.com/artifacts/le...
The Russian version of #LeopardsAteMyFace is “Comrade Stalin, there’s been a terrible mistake!”
I could imagine thinking of this as a kind of interiority/unconscious of culture or language, which could definitely be interesting. But I still assume that it would be a different sort of reading and interpretive toolkit.
If AI is at a point of self-awareness in which their brilliant novel would allow us to learn something about the interiority of AI, then sure. But that seems quite unlikely at the moment.
Suddenly a thought- remembering “unhandshakewithable” (нерукопожатный) from @michaelidov.bsky.social ’s “Dressed Up for a Riot,” taking place during the 2011-2012 protests, and “cancelled” is basically the right translation for that word that we didn’t know we had when Michael was writing.
Loving those medals. It's too bad we don't give out 17 of them for every new candy anymore.